


A Charming Discovery

by kpdiddy



Series: a GATEway to the void [4]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game), ゲート 自衛隊彼の地にて斯く戦えり - 竿尾悟 | Gate: Jietai Kanochi nite Kaku Tatakaeri - Sao Satoru (Manga)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Lots of charms described, Open Ending, Slight liberties taken with canon, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 09:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpdiddy/pseuds/kpdiddy
Summary: Rory Mercury makes a breakthrough discovery about the monsters across the gate, and makes sure it's put to ample use. How will the bugs respond?





	A Charming Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> As with the other stories in this series, while not directly connected to another one, it does take place in the same crossover AU as this story over on spacebattles. Reading it as well is not required, but can help with context, and it's just a great overall story! Feel free to join in the discussion over there, we'd love to have you!  
> https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/thus-the-remnants-went-forth-gate-hollow-knight.696295/

In all her hundreds of years of life as an Apostle, Rory Mercury only rarely was faced with a genuinely challenging situation, and even then, it was almost always in a social sense (and all too often a result of something related to Hardy) and not on the battlefield. 

 

Recent developments, however, had changed this fact rather drastically.

 

While the Empire simply referred to them as “Chittering monsters” she had the (debatably) advantageous experience of receiving coherent speech from some of them, and had learned that they referred to one another simply as “bugs” (despite not fitting the connotations of said word in the slightest). She knew not how they’d managed to bridge the language barrier (as it was obvious based off their intelligence that they did, in fact, have a universal language), though magic of some description was her current theory, as those few she’d met who she was able to understand were quite adept at magic.

 

A few were obviously a cut above the rest though. She wasn’t known as “Rory the Reaper” for nothing, but even  _ she _ had been forced to retreat a handful of times. The issue is that that list of times she’d been forced to retreat was quickly growing (in single combat no less!) as a result of two of these “bugs” in particular, whom she knew only by the titles they earned from those miraculously lucky enough to survive any visit either two made to the frontlines. 

 

And as much as she hated to admit it, her losses at their hands weren’t flukes, she was far from outmatched by either though, and had bested both more than once. But it didn’t take a genius to realize that if she was the only thing standing between those hapless Saderans and either “The Queen of Blood” or “The Black Death” that she couldn’t be in two places at once, nor fend off both at the same time. It didn’t help that the presence of either was almost always accompanied by a distinct surge in losses of mortal life, which presented a  _ unique _ (to put it lightly) problem for Rory.

 

It just so happened that today, Rory made a breakthrough.

 

One of her biggest issues when attempting to best either of the two nigh-godlike opposing commanders was their fighting styles. Each time Rory encountered one of them, it was as if she was fighting someone entirely different, their reach, physical properties, collection of magic attacks, they were all different. 

 

Her revelation had come after a particularly brutal confrontation with the dark one, their strikes stung far harder than before, reaching beyond where they had normally, and whenever Rory had landed one of her own equally crushing strikes, the thing’s body came alive and lashed out at her with some sort of razor-sharp tendrils. After a series of these lightning fast ripostes, Rory had had just about enough, the tendrils came closer and closer to taking off one of her limbs each time, and she’d be at a hefty disadvantage if she were forced to retreat after losing one of said limbs (aside from the obvious part of pain not being something she particularly welcomed with open arms).

 

Dodging one last strike, Rory kicked the dark one back and out of counter range. As she did so though, she caught a glimpse of something sheen in the sunlight. Acting with her usual speed, she caught the object, likely dislodged from the dark one as a result of the kick, and proceeded to disengage, leaving the area to better examine whatever it was she’d caught.

 

\-----

 

Upon later examination, it appeared that what she’d caused the bug commander to drop was some sort of trinket, it was a polished silver color, with horizontal grooves running down it’s length and around half a dozen spike-like protrusions pointing up and slightly out from the main body of the trinket. Perhaps the dark one kept it on their person as a good luck charm of sorts, given that the trinket was fitted with a foldable pin on the back which let it easily attach to any cloth garment, it even complimented her own outfit rather nicely, contrasting the well-polished silver of the trinket with the dark colors of her outfit quite nicely. 

 

After fastening the trinket just below her collar (intentionally in a visible area such as to taunt the “Black Death” the next time they encountered one another), Rory gave her halberd dramatic flourish to ensure the trinket would not dislodge during a fight as it did for the dark one, and then quickly did a double take.

 

Swinging her halberd again in front of her again, Rory was scarcely able to believe what she saw; a shimmering trail followed the head of her weapon through the air, extending outward past her weapon’s normal reach by a small, but still noticeable margin. A quick backswing at an otherwise out of reach tree proved that the trail wasn’t just for show either. In fact, the trail cut through the tree just as if Rory had used her halberd’s head.

 

Rory unpinned the trinket from her weapon incredulously, taking note of how the ethereal trail on her weapon disappeared as she did so. Finally putting two and two together, she realized there was certainly more to this unassuming trinket than met the eye. This also explained the great variance in fighting styles from the two bug commanders, Rory had no doubt in her mind that the many skills and varied properties they exhibited were at least in part enabled by magical trinkets such as the one currently in her possession. It was at times like these that Rory wished she was more familiar with enchanted items. Being able to produce more of these, not just for herself, but for the mortals as well, would greatly enhance their ability to wage war against the bugs.

 

\------

 

“Damn it! How did they manage this? There’s no way they could’ve possibly just been holding back this whole time. Not to the point of sacrificing that many of their numbers.”

 

The queen of Hallownest surveyed the battlefield from the back lines, perched upon a ridge that gave her an ample view of the quickly worsening state of the battle. A large amount of invaders had just arrived to back up their fellows, with many units not normally seen present in the newly arrived group. The giant brutes with their blunt strength to give Ogrim a run for his geo, those flame-breathing mounts and their likely magically inclined riders, even a group of those infamously resilient armored land riders.

 

What concerned Hornet more deeply than the new arrivals is the unprecedented amount of headway they were making. Hornet was well aware of the fact that the invaders occasionally came equipped with some kind of enchanted gear, which enhanced their combat effectiveness, but it was sufficiently uncommon of a sight for this to not make sense. 

 

The invaders had never equipped any but the absolute best in a given group with the enhanced items, yet as Hornet watched even Oro and Mato get forced together to maintain ground, she knew  _ something _ had changed. It seemed completely at random, one of the invaders would come forward and perform some feat beyond what they had ever been observed to do before. Unleashing a flurry of blows on some poor bug who stepped forward just a bit too much, seemingly ignoring grievous injuries to strike out with unheard of ferocity, or cutting a bug from afar without seeming to actually strike them.

 

None of this made any sense, and as Hornet wracked her brain trying to come up with a plan of action before her force’s formation crumbled, she felt a small warmth at her side, accompanied by some noise she didn’t pay attention to in her confused frenzy.

 

The noise and warmth gradually both intensified, and were Hornet less distracted, she might’ve even noticed the slight breeze beginning to bear down on her from behind. Hornet was finally snapped out of her own thoughts by a now very much audible  **“Hornet!”** Looking down to where the warmth was coming from, Hornet’s eyes were greeted with…

 

Absolutely nothing. Upon the call being repeated again, Hornet remembered the whisper stone she had with her (a handy creation from Shaman and Quirrel as of late, allowing those of particularly strong will to channel SOUL through it to project words to other stone-bearers within a sizably large range). Bringing the stone to her chest, Hornet responded “Yes Mato?” Hornet looked up back to the battlefield and noted the Nailmaster as having fallen back a small distance to safely converse with her.

 

“Ah! Finally got this thing to work! Yes, I don’t think you need me to tell you that things aren’t going to well over here.” Said the Nailmaster with chuckle, tinged with the grimness of the situation as it was. “Though I would like to report that my brother has a hunch about what’s going on with the invaders all of the sudden.”

 

“Well what is it? You know better than I do that time is of the essence right now.” Said Hornet, her usual annoyance at delays seeping back into her tone. “Oro’s been keeping track of of the invaders that act uncharacteristically competent. He said that ‘without fail, each and every one of them seem to have something on their person broken. I’d find small shards of varying shapes and colors, but I can’t discern what they might be.’ That wouldn’t happen to ring any bells for you, would it?”

 

The huntress’ face scrunched up in confusion at the new bit of information “Small shards…” she repeated quietly to herself. Before any revelation hit her though, Mato spoke again. “Ah but I must return to the fight, maintaining this conversation is rather taxing in the midst of battle, please don’t be afraid to call for a retreat if no answer presents itself, we’re not so proud as to throw away our lives in a losing battle.” With that the whisper stone ceased to warm Hornet’s hand, and she stowed it back in her cloak.

 

Small shards of something… It wasn’t much evidence to go on, though it did tell Hornet that the invaders were indeed using  _ something _ to enhance their forces into this super-army, as well as whatever this thing was, it was rather fragile. Returning her gaze to the field to estimate how much time she could spare to consider the mystery.

 

To her dismay, she noted the distinct condensing of the bugs’ formation, along with Oro squaring off with a giant invader that was exhibiting an extremely concerning amount of enhanced traits. Almost all its blows blew Oro backward, with the large beetle only barely maintaining his guard between blows, they came fast and hard, without any reasonable window of opportunity to counter. The giant even made a small show of its footwork, backstepping with haste that even the Nailmasters would have trouble matching when Mato jumped in from above to make some space for his brother.

 

What the cocky giant hadn’t anticipated was the brothers’ nail arts, as while Mato kept the giant busy, Oro charged in with his dash slash. Mato stepped out of the way at the last possible second as Oro flew past, and unleashed his might.

 

In a flash of purple light, the giant was sent flying back into enemy lines, or more specifically, half of it was; Oro had somehow cleaved the massive brute in two!

 

At this extremely auspicious development, something clicked into place in Hornet’s mind. Small shards... Enhancing combat abilities... Purple flash… and then it all came together with one last piece of information and Hornet’s eyes widened in shocked realization.

 

_ Charms _

 

Knight had mentioned misplacing his longnail charm some time ago, the shards the Nailmasters discovered must’ve been broken charms, likely not durable by nature of the invader’s shoddy construction (as usual), and the purple flash from something exhibiting many enhanced abilities was the punishment for what Knight had dubbed “overcharming,”  **_it all made sense now._ **

 

Damn them! How could they have figured out charm synthesis, even just of the brittle variety, from just a longnail charm?! How did the figure out how to make other kinds of charms?! How did they get the longnail charm in the first place?! As angry as these questions (and quite a few others brewing in her head) made her, Hornet calmed herself, these weren’t questions for the battlefield, she’d have to figure out that problem some other time.

  
For now though. Hornet decided it would be better to conduct some  _ hands on _ research into the issue, and hopped down the ridge, thread glistening with power.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I made it obvious which charm was which when describing them, I'm still new to this whole "creative writing" thing, but I hoped you liked it! Comments and criticism is always appreciated. 
> 
> Oh and yes, the whisper stone buildup absolutely was meant to sound like a description of the Grimmchild.


End file.
